Crossroads
by Eventhorizon7
Summary: Daniel is tired of watching Sam suffer in silence and decides to do something about it. This story does allude to Sam and Daniel embarking on something other than friendship. Please feel free to skip this story if that is not to your taste.


**Crossroads **

Deep down inside I know that she is hurting.

I know that she is being slowly torn apart by the events of the past few days. That she is being tormented by the unnecessary death of a honourable and respected man and that she is blaming herself for the unwitting part that she played in his demise.

Of course she is too damn tough to admit it, even to herself, but I know it is there all the same, lurking beneath that professional military façade that she insists on showing to the outside world.

I know because I have seen it before.

Far too many times before.

For more years than I care to count I have silently borne witness to this little charade, played out over and over again, on Earth and countless other planets. I have watched helplessly as each loss we have suffered has been brutally shoved away, as though it were a bruise to be reabsorbed by her body, or for it to be suppressed, to be taken out and contemplated at a moment of her choosing.

Always alone, never in the company of others.

I wonder sometimes how often she allows herself to exorcise those demons? How often she allows herself to take out each individual painful memory and seek out the cathartic release that she needs.

I doubt it is very often.

I watch as she toys with her food, using the fork to push it around the plate, unconsciously dividing the vegetables into neat little mounds according to their colour. The carrots in one area, broccoli in another, mashed potato in a smooth heap to one side. None of the sustenance makes its way off of the plate and into her mouth, instead her lips form a thin pursed line, almost bloodless in colour with the force of her checked emotions.

Her lack of appetite is yet another indication that she is feeling the effects of Emerson's death more acutely than she would like to admit. It is another part of the ritual, a kind of self imposed purification of her body, purging from it the foulness that she has had to witness.

When Janet died she didn't eat for a week.

I sometimes wonder if she deliberately skirts around the edges of an eating disorder and whether this self destructive trait was triggered by the sudden loss of her mother at such a vulnerable age.

I continue to watch her as she slowly goes into lockdown mode, retreating behind her fortified walls, erecting barriers between herself and the outside world so impenetrable that only a tactical nuclear strike would dislodge them. It is her defensive mechanism, her armour against the hurt and suffering.

If she were back on base she would escape to her lab on some pretence that she had some important experiment to run. There she would throw herself into the work, using it as a means to deflect the grief and pain that threatens to overwhelm her. I sometimes think that Sam does her best work during such periods, so focused does she become on the task at hand.

However, here on the Odyssey she has no such place to run, no bolt hole for her to gravitate toward, no means of hiding away so that she can lick her wounds and reinforce her defences. Instead fate seems to have dealt her a torturous blow, rubbing salt into freshly opened wounds.

As senior ranking officer she will have to take command of the ship as it slowly limps homeward. Given the destruction done by the minefield it will be a journey of many weeks. Many of the systems are down and those that are up and running are operating way below their optimum levels. It will be up to Sam to rally the crew, to keep it busy, to focus each individual crew member according to their strengths in order to repair the stricken vessel.

Put simply, she will have to step into the shoes of a dead man.

Her eyes rise to meet mine, as though my last thought has somehow been telepathically transmitted to her. She looks at me, her usually expressive blue eyes dulled by her sadness for the departed Colonel Emerson and the burden that she now carries in his name.

For a brief moment she looks as though she is about to say something, her eyes locking with mine, tears welling wetly to balance precariously on the parapets of her eyelashes.

I hold my breath hoping, praying that today might be the day when she finally reaches out and allows me to provide her with the succour that she so desperately needs.

She looks at me for a moment longer, hesitant, undecided, a multitude of emotions skittering across her visage, each one giving me a fleeting insight into the despair and sorrow that is engulfing her. Then all too soon her demeanour changes as she once more dons the mantle of the warrior. As a mark of her newfound resoluteness, she blinks away the wetness, inhales a deep breath and stands, pushing her chair back, picking up the non eaten tray of food. She turns away, crossing the short distance to the trash receptacle where she deposits her supper before striding out of the commissary.

I watch her leave with a heavy heart, glancing around the crowded room to see if anyone else had noticed her departure, but everyone seems engrossed in their own muted conversations, in their own reactions to the events of the past few days.

Only I have noticed the vulnerability of their new commander.

Only I know of her intention to tough this out alone and in pain.

I am tired of watching her do this to herself, tired of watching her slink away when she thinks that nobody is watching, broken and bloodied to lie in some cold and lonely corner until her wounds heal.

With each lonely cathartic metamorphosis, she loses a small part of herself, an infinitesimal piece of that special something that makes her the unique person that she is. The person that has become so precious and dear to me. I cannot let her do this to herself anymore. I cannot allow anymore pieces of her to be continually sloughed away like this.

I stand and leave the commissary knowing that I will only have a short window of opportunity in which to break through the fortifications that she is erecting around herself. I dread to think of the consequences should I fail, for I fear I will be leaving her floundering within a sea of desperation, unable to find a lifeline to the shore.

I will not let her become lost within the storm tossed ocean of her emotions.

I will become her lifeboat.

Providing she will let me.

I hurry down the corridors of the ship, heading toward the elevator that will take me toward where she is quartered. I'm waylaid by a group of technicians overhauling the ships electrical systems, a curtain of sparks and flashing conduits marring my path. Cursing under my breath I have to backtrack and find another elevator to take me down the several floors to her cabin.

Fate seems to conspire against me because I have to navigate one impassable hurdle after another before I finally reach her floor.

She is quartered in one of the quieter parts of the ship, her cabin tucked away at the bottom of a long corridor, adjacent to one of the scientific labs that are dotted all over the vessel. I know that she prefers it this way, that she can work undisturbed on the multitude of projects that she has on the go without disruption, but I can't help feeling that tonight it only serves to deepen the sense of isolation that she must be feeling.

I pause at her door, my finger poised over the intercom button.

I take a deep breath and depress the buzzer. Silence follows for long moments and I begin to wonder whether my assumption had been wrong and that maybe she hadn't retreated here after all. There is a small possibility that she has headed toward the bridge and if so, I will have lost my one opportunity to help her.

Just as I am about to walk away, defeat sinking like a lead weight in the pit of my stomach, the door slides open. Sam stands in the entryway, looking more tired than I have seen her in a long time. Her posture is slouched, her eyes red rimmed with exhaustion.

She looks surprised by my appearance at her door.

A strange sensation suddenly envelopes me, a dual feeling of excitement tempered by trepidation. I know that my being here tonight will result in us reaching a crossroads in our decade long relationship. It will challenge the personal boundaries that we have nurtured over the last ten years, pushing them to their limit and in so doing redefining them.

I suck in a quick breath and take that first initial step toward what is now an uncertain future.

"You don't have to do this alone."

It takes a moment for my words to sink in, but when they do I detect a slight raising of Sam's right eyebrow. She's remembering, remembering when I last spoke those words to her.

There is a long drawn out silence as we stand starting at each other.

The myriad of emotions that I saw cross Sam's face in the commissary returns, but this time she doesn't try to erase it, doesn't try to replace it with the tough military exterior. Instead she lets it permeate her features, lets me see the depth of the sorrow that she is feeling, and with her beautiful blue eyes she asks me a silent question in return.

I slowly raise my arms and open them wide.

For half a heartbeat we continue to stare at each other, then Sam takes a tentative step forward, then another before she finally crosses that invisible boundary, stepping into my embrace.

My arms slip around her, hugging her, feeling the tension in her muscles, the tautness of her body as she presses herself against me as though she were trying to burrow inside. After a moment I feel her reciprocate, her own arms mirroring mine as she wraps them tightly around my waist. She rests her head against my chest and I subconsciously raise my hand to softly stroke her hair.

"I'm here for you, Sam. I always have been."

Those words can be interpreted in so many different ways. I hope that Sam can detect the different layers, that she can understand that there is more to their meaning, that she is able to read between the lines and grasp what I have been aware of for so long, but I have been steadfastly trying to deny.

The truth.

The truth that I am no longer prepared to ignore.

That my feelings for her transcend those of one friend for another.

Sam pulls away from me, her eyes locking with mine, scrutinizing me, looking for the truth of those words in the one place where she knows I cannot hide, especially from her.

Words are my stock in trade, but in all the years that I have known Sam, they have been continually rendered obsolete. With us it has always been the eyes that have told us what we have needed to know. Whole sentences have been reduced to nothing more than a look or a glance, a shorthand more meaningful than dialogue, with an intensity that has sometimes left me breathless.

In a way our unique mode of communication is a good thing because right now I'm not even sure that I could string a coherent sentence together if I tried.

Sam is looking at me so intently, her eyes an intense shade of blue, her face a picture of concentration as she studies me. I am too scared to move, too nervous to break the moment between us, but at the same time I can't help wondering if she truly understands the things that I know that she is seeing in my eyes, whether she truly believes it.

The scrutiny continues for long moments, until I start to feel uncomfortable under her all encompassing gaze, until I begin to wonder if she is using the time to formulate a way to let me down gently.

Then a soft smile turns up the corners of her mouth, reaching her eyes until they shine with something that I had longed to see, but had never dared to hope for.

"I don't want to do this alone anymore either, Daniel."

She steps back, sliding her hands along my forearms until her fingers entwine with mine. She takes a further step back and beckons me with her, backing up until we cross the threshold of her cabin. She releases my hand briefly so that she can close the door and I hear it lock with a snick.

I know that in time both Sam and I will look back upon tonight as being a pivotal moment. A moment when our relationship evolved into something else, something more solid, more meaningful, more intimate.

However, I know that those changes will have to wait, that knowing Sam as I do they will come at a time and place of her choosing.

I can wait.

I've waited this long after all.

Tonight is about being there for her, it's about helping her to carry that burden that weighs so heavily upon her shoulders. It's about listening to her, comforting her, letting her come to terms with what has happened on this ship and helping her to explore her own grief over Emerson's death.

Only then, only when we have slain the spectre of Emerson's ghost can we start to plan the next part of our journey.

Together.


End file.
